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Summary
Circus Americanus is a riotous excursion through America's changing visual landscape. Exploring its remote corners and bizarre byways, Ralph Rugoff takes us on a tour of theme park slums and mystical police cars, futurist war and the "aesthetics of safe chaos." With an idiosyncratic eye for detail, he maps a culture in which "reality" has become just another theme, revealing an America much stranger than the glamorous kitsch of its surfaces. Whether he is writing about Las Vegas casinos, forensic cartoons, the enigma of Napoleon's preserved penis or the aesthetics of sewage treatment, Rugoff considers everyday marvels with a concern for how we live together in a world beyond belief.
Author Biography
Ralph Rugoff is Director of the Hayward Gallery and was previously a Los Angeles art critic covering visual culture for LA Weekly.
Table of Contents
| Acknowledgements | |
| Introduction | |
| Circus Americanus | |
| Gambling with Reality: The New Art of Las Vegas | p. 3 |
| Sea World Tales | p. 9 |
| Theme Park Slums | p. 15 |
| The Largest Free Event in California | p. 21 |
| Honey, I Shrunk the City | p. 25 |
| Courses in Seduction | p. 31 |
| Farewell, My Ferris Wheel | p. 35 |
| Christo's Umbrella Liability | p. 39 |
| Heavenly Vehicles | p. 43 |
| Investigating a Public Disappearance | |
| Excremental Journey | p. 49 |
| World Under Glass | p. 55 |
| Statues of Limitation: The Privatization of Public Art | p. 59 |
| Gun Rites | p. 65 |
| Building a Lost Future | p. 67 |
| Tijuana's Soldier of Fortune | p. 71 |
| The Illuminating Disappearance of Robyn Whitlaw | p. 75 |
| Street Medallions | p. 79 |
| The Last Public Sculpture | p. 83 |
| A Conspiracy of Vitrines | |
| A Conspiracy of Vitrines: The Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace | p. 87 |
| Mothership Hubbard: The Scientology Collection | p. 93 |
| The Museum of Jurassic Technology | p. 97 |
| Jump-cut to Auschwitz: The Beit Hashoah Museum of Tolerance | p. 101 |
| Arrested Artifacts: The LA County Sheriff's Museum | p. 109 |
| Gene Autry and the Marlboro Man | p. 115 |
| The Liberace Museum | p. 121 |
| Collecting Napoleon's Penis | p. 125 |
| Pathological Beauty: The Mutter Museum | p. 129 |
| Spectacular Bodies | |
| Ripped and Shredded | p. 137 |
| O Supermodel | p. 141 |
| Children and Other Miniature Collectibles | p. 145 |
| The Surgical Revolution | p. 149 |
| Lucha Libre: World without Borders | p. 153 |
| Living Large | p. 167 |
| Seeing Double | |
| Pictures from a Futurist War | p. 173 |
| Brave Nude World | p. 177 |
| On Forensic Photography | p. 183 |
| Head Shots | p. 187 |
| Crime Storyboard: Welcome to the Post-rational World | p. 191 |
| Sentimental Surveillance | p. 197 |
| The New Hollywood Park | p. 201 |
| Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved. |
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